Taiwan and the US have markedly improved their fishery cooperation in recent years, and thanks to US assistance, Taiwan succeeded in joining a new fisheries management body last month, Fisheries Agency Director-General James Sha (沙志一) said on Friday.
Sha, who is visiting the US capital, said that through US-Taiwan cooperation over the years, Taiwan has been able to join many international fishing management organizations as a “fishing entity.”
Its latest success — achieved with the assistance of the US and other friends such as the EU, New Zealand and Australia — was to join the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization as a fishing entity under the name “Chinese Taipei.”
The organization was created in Auckland, New Zealand, on Nov. 14 following the eighth round of international consultations on the group’s establishment, during which the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the South Pacific Ocean was adopted.
Once the convention takes effect, there will no longer be gaps in the international conservation and management of non-highly migratory fisheries and the protection of biodiversity from the eastern part of the southern Indian Ocean across the Pacific to the exclusive economic zones of South America.
Cooperation between Taiwan and the US has also been seen in substantive fishing operations, evidenced by several bilateral joint ventures that have been formed, Sha said.
For instance, Taiwan-US joint venture fishing vessels now form the bulk of the US fleet operating in the western and central Pacific Ocean, he said.
Taiwan, as a major global fishing power, has actively sought to enter international fishery resources conservation and management organizations for many years, he added
The country has been a member of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission since 2005.
It plans to join the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission next year.
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